tousled & autumnal

It’s autumn! For reals! I have socks on! My coffee was pumpkin flavored this morning! It was iced coffee, but still. Autumn! Oh, how I adore you, season of mists & mellow fruitfulness.

The circus is officially out of my hands. It’s strange, but it’s been a long time coming. So while occasionally glancing wistfully in the direction of the Revisionland Hotel, I’m working on a new novel. Right now it’s grown-up Alice in a 40s noir-inspired Wonderland. I have a couple of languishing works in progress that I probably could have gotten back to, but my brain was craving something new. I’ve written 25k in just over a week. I need to read some more detective novels to get the flavor right, but so far it’s interesting.

And I decided I needed some updated photos of myself, so the boy indulged me in a photo session yesterday. Still getting used to the new camera lens, but after some trial & error, I’m pretty pleased with the results. The best ones are now on the about page, and here’s how the rest of that hair tousle went:

nine things for the ninth day of the ninth month

  1. I sent my completed revisions back to Agentland last week.
  2. My revisions did not reach Agentland last week, due to the inconsistent wonderment that is the internet. I blame Mercury in stupid, stupid retrograde.
  3. Revisions are safe & sound in Agentland now, for real & for true.
  4. Instead of being a normal person & taking some time off post-Revisionland, I currently have 22k of a new novel that I started last Wednesday. Yeah.
  5. I really don’t know why I didn’t get Florence + the Machine’s Lungs ages ago instead of this afternoon. Am in music love. Reminds me of Bat for Lashes.
  6. Still fooling around with the new camera lens, thus, low-light photo of the statue of Thoth next to the computer:
  7. I wish I’d discovered that BPAL sugar notes smell divine on me years ago, because I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of lovely scents. I have the 2010 version of Sugar Skull on right now and it’s gooooooorgeous.
  8. Nine things was probably too ambitious, wasn’t it? I just liked the theme, what with the date.
  9. Yeah, I got nothing. Ah well.

beyond revisionland & also an albino squirrel

I am out of Revisionland for the moment. Beyond Revisionland looks an awful lot like Revisionland, but Septembery.

I spent most of last week finishing & polishing & re-polishing. I’ve lost all perspective, which is usually a sign that I need to stop looking at it for awhile, so it’s gone off to Agentland.

I spent all day yesterday reading Mockingjay. I’m very conflicted about it, and I suspect I’ll be processing my thoughts on it for a good long while. I mostly enjoyed it while I was reading but I just didn’t love it the way I loved The Hunger Games & Catching Fire. I think part of it is the scope. While HG & CF had a lovely, intimate immediacy to the circumstances,  Mockingjay is much more vast, and I’m not sure how well it wears it.

Also, during Revisionland internet hiatus, I got my albino squirrel from Sleepy King.

Because, well, I needed an albino squirrel.

Squirrel photo taken with my new camera lens that just came in the mail today. I’ve been meaning to take more photos & I always get good Salem shots in the autumn, so I figured I’d invest in a new lens. It’s a Canon 50mm f/1.8 II and no, I totally don’t know what it means other than it does that fuzzy background thing I love, and from a few minutes of playing around with it, it takes gorgeous photos of kittens.

This may be the first time I’ve ever caught the Tessa yell on camera.

Still getting used to it, but so far I kind of love it. A few more shots of Tess are over on my oft-neglected Flickr photostream.

In other news, summer decided to have a last hurrah so it is far too hot, and I kind of don’t know what to do with myself now that I’m out of Revisionland. Maybe I’ll take more photos of kittens. Or peek at one of those WIPs that I’ve been neglecting. Or knit. Or something.

keys

We have this long blank wall in the hallway.

From time to time I thought of putting decals on it or something, but it seemed like too much effort for a space we only ever spend seconds at a time passing through.

Then we found this set of skeleton keys, and it seemed a good place for them.

They make me inexplicably happy when I walk down the hallway now. But I have a thing for keys.

In other news, I’ve finally reached the end of my first pass revision-wise. I still have a long list of beta notes and adjustments to make, with more to come, but the major changes are done so the rest should ideally be minor things and polishing.

The full draft will be finished by the end of the month. Summer in the Revisionland Hotel has been interesting, to say the least.

tessa + box = <3

Tessa & a Rather Small USPS Priority Mail Box

a love story in photos

She’s been in there practically nonstop for a week.

She’s never going to let me recycle that box.

in lieu of content

I am so deep in Revisionland it’s absurd. I am attempting to finish this draft by the end of the month, which is reasonable, but means the rest of the month is going to be very busy.

Like, I might not read Mockingjay until a week after it comes out busy. I know.

So in lieu of actual blog content this week, here is a photograph of a pomegranate.